


from square one with the wit of an old pro

by retromutagen



Series: Youtuber AU [2]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, M/M, Slice of Life, Youtuber AU, anyway idk what this is, josh and tyler have a child on camera, kind of, there's a q n a there too a quick one at that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 22:25:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9292103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/retromutagen/pseuds/retromutagen
Summary: “I think Charlie thinks they have already been born,” Josh said conclusively, nodding and crossing his arms.“That doesn’t make any sense. It wasn’t satisfying at all.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> set somewhere before the first one, no clear relation to it though, just the same 'verse
> 
> title from notes by modern baseball

Tyler pressed record. The red light was instantly on, as the camera came back to life, sat heavily on a make-shift tripod (three Harry Potters, Trainspotting and the first Hunger Games book stacked) on the desk he and Josh were sitting in front of. It was cloudy outside the window they were facing. Behind them, a few feet away, was their queen-sized bed, unmade and messy. Next to the bed was a small, dark wooden table for two and a pile of clothes on both of the chairs. Further into the apartment there was a kitchen and a narrow hallway out. You could see the old microwave oven and dirty dishes if you looked close enough; Tyler wondered if the background was too messy for the video but decided not to do anything about it. Their small and unorganized apartment made them seem real, he figured. 

Josh was fiddling to straighten his white t-shirt and then proceeded to flip his cap backwards. His fluffy mess of pink hair stuck out under it, but he didn’t fix it. Tyler only pushed his hoodie’s sleeves up and pulled his beanie further on; his hair was a mess. He suppressed a yawn, trying to keep his posture alert. 

“You ready?” he asked Josh, voice breathy, squinted eyes eyeing the viewfinder to check if they were in focus. The lighting was off, due to it being natural and shifting with the movement of the few planted trees outside, but it was good enough considering they didn’t have good lamps anywhere. “Listen, the lighting is shit, but it will do, right?” he continued before Josh could answer his first question.

The pink-haired man beside him leaned closer to look at themselves on the small screen. “Yeah, it’s good. Let’s go. Start with silence, yeah?” Tyler nodded and cleared his throat.

They both stared at the lense. Tyler counted seven seconds before he said, tone rather serious: “We have an announcement to make today. This might upset some of you, but we decided it was the best decision at this point.” They both continued to maintain eye contact with the camera, serious as ever, breathing slowly. “We are going to have baby.” Then at the same second Josh picked a box near his feet, fumbled to regain his position on the tall bar stool, and slammed it on to the desk. 

“Yo, don’t break it! It hasn’t even been born yet!” Tyler shouted and Josh snickered. 

“We are going to be dads to a beautiful baby chick,” he said, turning the box’s front side towards the camera. It said _Hatchimal_ in faded white color. “I hope you’re very happy for us.”

Tyler sat up, straightening his falling bad posture, the uncomfortable chair making focusing harder. His tiredness didn’t help. “Many of you guys requested that we need to have a child and get married,” he explained, tone dry, “but I haven’t proposed yet and no one will loan us their child, so we’ve got the next best thing.”

“It’s an egg,” Josh said, tearing the packet open with quick hands. “Basically what we need to do is to cuddle and love it, and then it will hatch and we will have a child.”

“What could go wrong really?” Tyler asked, shifting his wide eyes towards Josh, who snickered. 

“We’ve read the instructions before, and it literally says we need to hold it and stroke it for about thirty minutes, and then it’s ready to hatch, so that’s what we are doing today.” Josh pulled the egg out of the cardboard, showing it to the camera. It was speckled with pink dots. Josh continued to explain, his voice giddy and excited. “The hatching will begin once I pull these,” he showed the bottom of the plastic egg to the camera, “levers off. So, let’s get right into it. Tyler, you ready to become a father?”

“Go for it, man.” 

Josh pulled the levers off. The speckled egg came to life, making child-like, robotic sounds; it sounded like giggling at first, but then just snoring. They stared at the egg Josh held carefully in his hands.

“That’s freaky as hell, though,” Tyler said, head tilted, as the egg continued to make soft sounds. 

“People say they hear swear words and shit in this nonsense,” Josh said. He was now examining the egg all around, but nothing happened, other than that the snoring turned into babbling noises again.

“Wait, the instructions said to caress it, didn’t they?”

“The instructions say to hold it, caress it, wake it up if it sleeps with, like, slaps.” He patted the egg carefully. “And then at some point, a robot bird will hatch, and it’s either going to be,” he picked up the torn box from the table, “a Penguala or a Draggle.” He looked a bit baffled, and Tyler felt his lips turn to a smirk. 

“Our baby’s going to be a colorful, robotic bird. I wouldn’t have expected any less.” Josh laughed at that, nodding. “And it’s going to take up to thirty minutes?”

“Yeah, but people are saying it might take more or less, or it might not hatch at all.”

“So, we might be here a while, ladies, gentlemen, and other honorable guests,” Tyler addressed the camera. “Hopefully, we are not going to just sit here, doing nothing else than rubbing an egg. I will literally fall asleep.”

“We’ll figure something to do, if it ends up taking a while.”

“Honestly, it’s two hundred dollars down the drain, if it doesn’t hatch,” Tyler said, holding out a hand, and Josh passed the egg to him. “Look, it has glowing eyes.” He showed the egg to the camera, waiting for it to focus. “I don’t know if you can see it, but they glow through the shell.”

“Start rubbing it, man. We have to get a move on, if we want it to hatch. There’s censors at the bottom of the egg, so it knows when we are holding it.”

Tyler started to rub it, sliding his left hand’s fingers over it a couple of times. It gave a musical sound as a reaction. “Please, I’m already at it. I take fatherhood very seriously,” he waggled his eyebrows at the camera, leaning forward, almost slouching again. “What if it doesn’t, though? Is it stillborn, then?”

“Yikes, that’s morbid.” Josh laughed awkwardly. Tyler loved his laugh; he was sure his fondness was transparent, as he watched the boy next to him with kind eyes. His tiredness made it harder to maintain a casual façade. Josh was now reading the instruction paper again, having picked it up from behind the camera. He looked gorgeous in white, Tyler thought.  
“Uh, no, we won’t get a dead chick. If it doesn’t hatch, then we can carefully break the shell and remove it ourselves. If it starts to flash in rainbow colors, it’s close to hatching and we’re good to go.” The egg was glowing in yellow through the shell. 

“Great, good stuff there.” Tyler now rubbed the egg with both hands. The egg made odd noises at him. “Our son already doesn’t like me.”

Josh patted his back. “You can give it to me.” Tyler handed the egg over, and Josh continued to rub it. Suddenly, the egg was silent. “Shit, wake up, boy.” He patted the egg again, shaking it around. It came back to life. “So, now we wait.”

Tyler leaned on his arms, practically lying on the table before them, resting his tired neck. He yearned for a nap. He vowed to have one after they were done filming. Josh would have to join him. “What do you expect from fatherhood, Josh?”

The egg made happy, content _ya_ noises as Josh rubbed the bottom of it. “I don’t know, um,” he hesitated, “I’m most excited about teaching our son some sweet skateboarding tricks. What about you?”

“Honestly, I’m just ready to turn it off, already,” Tyler deadpanned, “the noises are pissing me off.” Josh snorted, nudging him with a hand, saying _respect our son, Tyler_ in passing. “No, seriously, we need to do something, other than rub an egg for thirty minutes. We’ll end up on _h3h3_ , with the weird kids’ toys channels.” 

Josh snorted. “That would probably just be an honor. Do you know how long actual child birth takes?” Josh asked matter-of-factly.  
“Do tell.”  
“It takes about eight hours. Some take _days_ ,” Josh answered, looking at Tyler with a raised brow.  
“Wow, that’s some real knowledge there.”  
“Yeah, let that sink in. This here,” he said holding the egg out, “is nothing at all.”  
Tyler huffed, already regretting his next words. “I don’t understand why the sink always keeps trying to get in, man.” Josh, brows furrowed, pushed him harder this time unbalancing him. Tyler made a mental note to zoom into his face, during editing. He was lucky he was leaning securely on the table though; otherwise Josh would have pushed him onto the floor. 

“Honest to god, that was one of the worst things you’ve ever said,” Josh said. His smirk was extremely amused, though. Tyler figured he was just as fond of him as he was of Josh, as he stared at the man’s crinkly-eyed grin. The egg was giggling again. Tyler agreed with it, somehow.

“You don’t understand. Puns are art, Josh. It’s art.” Tyler fixed his position, sitting up, this time really trying to focus on keeping himself alert. He’d have loved to cuddle up to Josh right about now and sleep for an hour or two. The egg’s noises filled the room.

Josh’s face suddenly lit up. “Tyler.”

“Yes, dear?”

Josh held the egg out again close to the camera, stroking it with swift movements, tipping it over a bit, to prevent it from falling asleep again. “The baby needs a name. Our son needs a name.”  
Tyler huffed, narrow-eyed. “Why are you so sure it’s a son? Might turn out to be a daughter.”

Josh seemed to ponder on it for a quick second. “We won’t know until it tells us really, when it grows up. We need to stop dehumanizing our child, though, no one deserves to be called an it.”

“It’s a toy.”

“It’s about the principle. We need to use correct words for our child.”

Tyler huffed again, but getting the point. “Fine. _They_ ,” Tyler emphasized the pronoun, “surely will tell us at some point. In the meantime, we need to figure out a gender-neutral name.” He proceeded to put on a thoughtful expression. Josh beat him to the answer, though. 

“Let’s call them Charlie.”

“That’s a good one. I was honestly thinking about something along the lines of Chick-fil-A, but whatever’s fine really.”

Josh looked exasperated for a second, eyes wrinkling with amusement though, and he pressed his hands firmly on either side of the egg. It just babbled. “Do not talk about stuff like that in front of our son, Tyler!”

“Again with the gendering!” Tyler countered, but he couldn’t hold in his smile. 

“It’s a toy!”

“It’s our child, _Josh_ , you said it yourself.” Josh huffed in false annoyance and turned his back to Tyler, who just laughed. 

“It’d be a good name, though.” His tone was totally different now, and it made Josh turn back around. This part, Tyler knew, he was going to edit out. “Like for real. Some day.” Josh only looked at him with wide eyes and nodded almost solemnly.

They sat quietly for a while. Josh handed Tyler the egg, and he continued to rub it. Tyler briefly felt Josh trace a hand along his shoulder. Nothing had happened yet; the egg was just babbling with glee.

“Should we do a Q and A, while we wait?” Josh asked. Tyler nodded. “I’ll tweet out the hashtag and ask for some Qs. Can I use your phone? Mine’s somewhere.” Tyler fished it out of his pocket and handed it over and received a small _thanks_ in return. Before Josh tapped into the phone, he leaned close to Tyler, who turned his head to face him. They shared a soft look. Tyler looked at him under lightly raised brows. Then, Josh leaned further in, kissed Tyler’s lips. Tyler would have followed in for more but they were in the middle of filming and he was, to be honest, tired from last night, even if the thought of it made him just a bit excited in a matter of seconds. _Just a bit_ , mind you. More of Josh’s kisses wouldn’t hurt him. Quite the opposite really.

The egg was snoring again in his hands, he shook it gently, waking it up again. 

“This piece of shit keeps falling asleep.” Tyler was starting to despise the babbling noises, as he stared at it with narrow eyes.  
Josh was tapping on his phone, brows furrowed slightly. “It’s probably not supposed to do that so much.”  
“Wonder if it’s actually broken.”  
“It’d be a bummer - look I tweeted.” He handed the phone back to Tyler, who read the text displayed. 

@tylerrjoseph: _Send us your best inquiries, use #cliqueasks_

“You could have used your own account, you know, or like, the joint account,” Tyler said receiving a quiet _too late_ as an answer and he smirked. He didn’t actually care, even if some phone-sharing occasions had ended up in rather peculiar tweets and pictures. He gave the phone to Josh again.  
He stretched his back and sighed loudly. “It would seem that our child will be taking quite a while being born, but in the meantime,” he addressed their future audience, “we’ll answer your questions.”  
“If you want to participate in later Q ‘n’ As, we usually use the hashtag _cliqueasks_ ,” Josh explained. “You need to follow both of our accounts and the channel one on twitter to keep up though, so might wanna get on that.”

Tyler laughed. “Get that promo, dude.” Josh nodded decisively, mouth an agreeing line. “Hit me with the first Q.”

Josh looked at the screen. “Jesus Christ, you guys are fast. There’s already a dozen.” He was silent for a moment. “ _Get married._ That’s not a question.”

Tyler snorted, shoulders shaking with the force of it. “On it. Next.”

“ _Who tops?_ This is all around terrible, already,” Josh shook his head, giving a convincingly disappointed look to the lense.

“That’s literally still none of your business,” Tyler pointed the camera, but as Josh read the next question, he turned the finger to point at himself and mouthed _me_. Josh knew him too well, though, and shook his head immediately.

“Whatever Tyler’s miming at you, it isn’t true.” His voice didn’t falter once, determined to confuse their audience of the truth that was yet to be disclosed to them (and would continue to be). Tyler missed the times when Josh was still embarrassed to talk about sex on camera. “Seriously, though, you can think anything you want, but we are not going to tell you that information. Let’s move on.”

Tyler nodded. “Go for it.”

“ _Tyler, what do you dislike about Josh?_ Yeah, boy, let’s get to the real tea,” Josh said turning to look at him with expectant eyes, grinning slightly. Tyler stroked the egg quietly for a while, looking somewhere in the distance. 

“Josh has started to snore, to be honest,” he then said. It was true. “It tends to keep me up at night.” That part wasn’t true; Tyler became immune to Josh’s nighttime sounds quite quickly as they emerged.  
Josh huffed an exasperated laugh. “I’ve literally never once snored in my entire life.”  
Tyler raised his brows, challenging. “Oh, yeah?” He took the phone from his hands, exchanging it for the babbling egg, and opened the audio files. “What the fuck is this then?” He played the most recent one. A static noise of snoring filled the room alongside the egg’s sounds. 

Josh looked instantly embarrassed, even if the snoring wasn’t that loud. Just soft grunts really. “Oh, no,” he sighed. ”I’m sorry about that.” He looked genuinely miserable about it, almost guilty. He snatched the phone out of Tyler’s hands and turned the file off, the egg now discarded on the table.

Then he said, looking down on the floor: “You need to tell me if that bothers you, really. I honestly didn’t know I snore. I don’t want to keep you up at night.”  
Tyler couldn’t hold in his grin; he felt a sudden surge of emotions towards his boy. “No, no, it’s fine. It doesn’t.” He extended his hand to softly stroke Josh’s cheek. His gaze shifted to Tyler again. “I wouldn’t sleep better anywhere else than next to you.” That made Josh smile sweetly again. Tyler felt like he was melting into a puddle of honey. He’d edit the PDA out of the video later, but now he surged to kiss Josh, pulling him close by his neck. 

Tyler turned to camera, then. “In reality, I don’t dislike anything about Josh, so,” he shrugged.

The egg made pecking noises on the table then and giggled. Josh’s eye’s widened. “Hey! That means it’s trying to break the shell.”

Tyler whooped lazily. “One step closer to becoming a dad then. It’s been what, twenty minutes?” He picked the egg up and started to rub it again. Another pecking noise. “Let’s continue with the questions. Hit me, Josh.”  
Josh read the screen on the phone again. “ _Do you share clothes?_ Yes, we do. _Will you be my dads?_ We would like to, but we are already having a child.” Tyler nodded agreeing, holding out the egg. 

“ _How does it feel to be a bean?_ It’s, um, it’s great.” Josh looked expectantly at Tyler who just hummed.

“Yeah, it’s great, a hard job but somebody’s gotta do it,” he said solemnly. “Next.”

“ _Josh, does Tyler help you dye your hair?_ Yes, he does, at times.” Tyler beamed. “He is also the reason why the white tiles are splattered with all the colors of the rainbow, now, so.”  
“Can’t help it, that you have an uncontrollable lion mane on your head,” Tyler made a face at him, brow creased and lips pursed. Josh snickered. 

“ _Do aliens exist?_ Yes,” Josh said, and at the same time Tyler shook his head and mouthed _no_. Josh continued to scroll through the questions in content silence. Tyler proceeded to examine the babbling egg.

He noticed a large crack running through the speckled shell. As he picked at it, the egg went wild with noises, and the eyes inside turned to flash rainbow. “Josh, look!” 

Josh eyed at the egg, brows raised. “Oh, shit, it’s hatching?” He discarded the phone on the table.  
“I think so,” said Tyler and placed the egg on the surface again, next to the phone. “Y’all,” he said, “our baby’s being born.”

They both just stared at the egg expectantly. Nothing happened, the flashing stopped.

“Wait, is that it? Isn’t it, I mean Charlie, supposed to burst out of the shell?” Tyler asked baffled. Josh hummed, pondering. The sounds were now different, they were yelps of annoyance and fright. 

“I think Charlie thinks they have already been born,” Josh said conclusively, nodding and crossing his arms.

“That doesn’t make any sense. It wasn’t satisfying at all.”

Josh agreed. “I read somewhere that this might happen. I also warned you, remember?” He picked the egg up, picking at the cracked shell. The thing inside it was babbling again, sounding like it was turning around furiously.

“Yeah, but this is kind of outrageous. This thing was expensive.” Tyler gestured to the cracked egg. “Give it to me.” Tyler took the egg from Josh, who watched him curiously. Then, Tyler proceeded to rip the shell off with his hands, startling Josh only for a moment - and so Charlie came to life.

It was a bird robot in different shades of blue. Josh looked surprisingly proud. 

Tyler ripped the bird out of the rest of its shell, pretending to clean dust off of it. “Welcome Charlie to the family, everyone.” He placed the toy on the table. It made noises still, turning on its wheels: exasperated sighs, giggling and shrieks of fright sounded out around the room in a matter of seconds, as Josh and Tyler looked at it with wide eyes. The bird continued its journey through emotions, and didn’t seem ready to stop anytime soon. The pair just stared at it, for a long while, until Josh said quickly:

“Turn it off.”

“What?”

“Turn it off, right now.” Tyler fumbled momentarily with the bird, eager to put an end to the sound galore. 

Once it was turned off he said with a small voice: “I though you said we need to respect our child, Josh.” 

Josh covered his face with his hands, stammering. “Yeah, but, like, it was going crazy, dude! It practically gave me an anxiety attack in seconds. It must be broken” He stared at nothing then, eyes wide and dumbfounded.

Tyler laughed, throwing his head back. “Yeah, or maybe you need to be a kid to keep up with it.” He slung an arm over Josh’s shoulders and felt him grip his waist softly. “We are just too old for this shit.” Tyler looked at the camera, mouth a thin line.

Josh sighed, shaking his head in defeat. “Honestly, the bird has like a million different emotions we need to take care of. It’s just too much hassle.”

That made Tyler laugh. “We are never getting a child then,” he said grinning. “A real one needs constant attention for at least eighteen years.” He heard Josh let out a quiet _dear god_ under his breath. Tyler felt it was a good moment to end the video on.

“Well, I hope you enjoyed our brief journey into fatherhood slash Q ‘n’ A.”

“Even if it was a failure. We’ll do better next time, we promise. Don’t forget to subscribe for more quality content, peeps.” Josh finger gunned at the lense.

“Josh, what would you say was the lesson we learned today?” Tyler looked at the boy next to him, who thought about the question for a short minute. 

Then he said, leaning forward. “Use a condom, kids.”

The recording ended in Tyler’s loud laughter.

**Author's Note:**

> this is a hatchimal: http://www.hatchimals.com/ and i've never seen or used one, just watched some videos
> 
> thanks for feedback in advance, i'm awkward as hell and can't take a compliment so i won't probably answer comments but ily all
> 
> i'm not a native english speaker so bear with me
> 
> (psst, i have other works as well if you wanna ya know get into that)
> 
> seeya next time


End file.
